Casca 7: The Damned (4 page)

Vergix snorted through his sweeping mustache. He was too wily not to see how deep the rot had set in among the Roman forces and their commanders. It was with regret that he reconciled himself to serving on the side he was least disposed toward. But the Norns will have their way as they weave the threads of man's existence until the time when they take their shears and snip his life. He would just have to go along with whatever it was that they had planned for him.

Alaric didn't understand why the Romans kept breaking their word to him. He had lived up to his end of their bargain, but time and again the Empire had shown bad faith and treachery to one who wanted to be a friend. This time they had gone too far, and he would teach them the meaning of honor if he had to march all the way to the walls of Rome itself.

When he had asked them for lands to settle his people on, the Senate had granted him territory in Moesia between the Danube and the Balkans. He knew the reason he was given permission was for his Visigoths to provide a buffer zone between the Empire and the expansions of the tribes of savage Scythia.

It was because of these tribes that he wanted to move his people out of their homelands. For three seasons there had been bad weather with small harvests. This, combined with the constant pressure of the Huns and others, led Alaric to decide that, rather than go to war when his tribes were just barely above starvation level, he would appeal to Rome.

There had been one treachery after the other. The food his people were to receive was stolen by the Roman administrators. The gold to be paid him for guarding their borders was withheld. He had needed this to pay his warriors who, while they were away from their homes guarding the frontiers, could raise no crops or cattle. The gold was necessary for them to feed their families.

Then the final stroke. During a meeting to discuss his problems, the Romans had struck without warning, killing thousands of his people including women and children. That was too much. In a rage, he had struck blindly out with his warriors, not seeking conquest, only to avenge the slaughter of his innocents.

It was to his surprise that the Roman forces opposing him fell apart under his attack. The foul deed of the Romans brought to him others who had suffered under the imperial yoke, swelling his forces with those who wanted revenge or the chance to plunder.

Alaric was no ignorant savage; he was descended from the noble house of the Balti and was an Arian Christian, as were most of his tribe. Perhaps it was the Church of Rome that caused them all this trouble. He knew the Roman church considered them heretics.

He drew much of his strength from those who were suffering under the persecution of the Church. To them he gave religious freedom.
Each man to his own gods and conscience.

In the matter of war it was different. Any who came to his standards knew they had to give unquestioning obedience to him. Alaric knew that many of Rome's problems came from having too many would be leaders all working against each other
. This would not be tolerated if he was to win. There could be only one master of the armies.

All that he had ever wanted for them was to be an honored friend and ally. There was much his nation could learn from the Romans. He wanted to raise them up from being just a semi nomadic race of warriors. He wanted cities for them and schools. All this could only come from Rome.

He gave the order. His Visigoths and their allies crossed over the frozen rivers, taking their wagons with them. One after another the cities of the Empire fell to them. Many opened their gates when they learned that those who did not oppose him would be treated gently and only their gold and the articles needed for war would be taken from them. He did not leave those he conquered to starve. He always left behind enough grain to see them through to the spring.

He would not have chosen a winter campaign, but there was no other way to get food to feed his thousands except from the granaries of Roman provinces.

Greece fell to them almost as an afterthought. Once they started moving there was no way to stop. Athens surrendered and paid tribute. Corinth and Sparta next. Then all of Argos yielded without raising arms to resist. The noble heroes of Greece were only legends, Achilles and Hector distant memories from a past that lived only in fables.

Alaric had the wealth of Greece at his disposal and distributed most of it among his tribesmen. They took slaves by the thousands, especially the women. These helped to keep the tempers of the conquerors in control. The daughters of Greece went to the wagons of their new masters, and their families were spared.

Rome put her hope in the ability of their ablest general, Stilicho, who was finally permitted to take troops from Italy and go to the aid of the Greeks. Gathering a fleet, he sailed with his army to the Isthmus, not far from Corinth.

In time he had some measure of success in repelling the barbarians who retreated slowly to the mountain of Phloe on the border of Elis, where Stilicho put their camp under seige. But Stilicho made an error in judgment. Believing he had
them bottled up and only had to wait until they were starved into submission, he left the battlefield to his subordinates in order to enjoy the fruits of his apparent victory by reveling in the sensuous pleasures of the decadent Greeks.

While Stilicho was away, Alaric outsmarted him by making a separate treaty with Arcadius, Emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire to which this part of Greece actually belonged. By making a truce, Arcadius would receive credit for ending the war, and not his cousins from Italy.

Stilicho was forced to let the Visigoths evacuate. If he had broken the treaty made with Arcadius, there might have been civil war. Thus, Alaric was able to get his warriors and their loot out of Greece safely. Stilicho returned to Italy without the victory he had gone to Greece for.

Alaric continued his negotiations with Arcadius and was given, to the astonishment of the West, the rank of Master General of Eastern
Illyricum. He became the lawful master of many of the cities he had so recently plundered. They were forced to turn over their armories to him.

Night and day the forges worked to turn out arms for his warriors. Too often a Roman victory came because they were better equipped. That would be changed.

Alaric would honor his agreements with Arcadius but the memory of past treachery was too fresh for him to put much faith in it. Now he would use the time honored ploy of playing one side against the other, all the time strengthening his armies at the expense of the two bickering empires.

Alaric had ears inside the councils of the Senate. Gold could buy much. He knew they were plotting against him again. This time he would beat them to the punch and make the first strike. He would let Italy know what it was like to be treated harshly. Then perhaps
Honorius would see reason.

The armies of the Visigoths marched from Thessaloni
ka through Pannonia into the Julian Alps. Alaric took his time, knowing his ranks would swell with swarms of volunteers who hated Rome. Over twenty thousand men came to him who were escaped slaves and wanted a chance to hit back at their masters.

Stilicho was all that stood between Alaric and the heartland of Italy. Time and again Stilicho warded off thrusts by the Visigoths. He was shrewd and knew the mind of Alaric. He bought time with words and promises. Stilicho almost won a complete victory when he attacked the Christian Goths as they celebrated the festival of Easter. The victorious Romans took revenge on the camp of the Goths for the rape and pillage of Roman lands. Alaric withdrew back across the borders, but he would return.

Another barbarian king, Radagaisus, had invaded Gaul at the head of two hundred thousand men from the tribes of Suevii, Vandals, Burgundians, and the Alani. His personal guard was that of twelve thousand warriors who had distinguished themselves in combat and wore their wounds as the Romans did their badges.

Honorius left Gaul to its fate. Rome was too exhausted to do more than defend her own territorial borders. While Alaric rested, Radagaisus marched. He
laid waste all before him, and crossed from Gaul into Italy with such speed that he had the city of Florence under siege before any effective resistance could be mounted against him. He was only a hundred and eighty miles from Rome, and all that stood in his way was a hastily gathered force under the command of Stilicho.

Stilicho had waited until the barbarians were fully involved with their siege of Milan. He knew the effect that long sieges had, not only on the defenders, but also on an attacking force. He estimated correctly the amount of time it would take for the invaders to use up their supplies and their gleanings from the countryside,
then he struck. He had managed to put together nearly thirty legions, of which a large number were from tribes still allied more to him personally than to Rome. He surrounded the weakened and hungry force of Radagaisus and took him prisoner. About a hundred thousand warriors managed to escape to the valleys between the Appomonnia and the Danube. There they licked their wounds and waited.

Radagaisus was executed by order of Honorius, and Stilicho was, for the second time, awarded the title of Savior of Rome. Stilicho was the most respected Roman the Empire had, and even the barbarians from a dozen tribes paid him his due as a war chieftain and leader. He even made a treaty with Alaric, in which Alaric was again given command of Roman territory as a governor. This assured, for the time being anyway, a period of relative peace, in which the Roman forces could be rebuilt and new legions formed.

Stilicho, unfortunately, became too popular. Honorius became jealous and listened to the lies told him by one Olympius, a young, ambitious toady who curried favor with Honorius by telling him what he most wanted to hear. Stilicho was driven to take refuge in a church in Ravenna where he claimed sanctuary, but even this was denied when Count Heraclian tricked Stilicho into coming outside the confines of the church. The Bishop of Ravenna had been assured by Heraclian that he only wanted to put Stilicho under arrest, but when Stilicho came forth, the Count immediately produced another document ordering his immediate execution. Stilicho went to his death nobly and bared his neck to the executioner's blade without any protest or plea for mercy.

Rome's last great general was dead. There was no one left in the empire to hold back the gathering storm on the frontiers.

Alaric was not long in coming. The death of Stilicho had removed the last great obstacle from his path and he moved into Italy, again gathering to him the warriors that escaped the slaughter of Radagaisus, and even the tribesmen that fought so valiantly for Rome under the leadership of Stilicho came to him and added another thirty thousand hard men to his standards.

Casca and Vergix killed time in Ravenna on guard details and escort duty for the Emperor, who decided to stay behind the high walls of Ravenna rather than return to Rome. He was much safer here than in the eternal city. . Alaric marched south, leaving Ravenna alone. He wasn't going to make the same mistake that Radagaisus had and tie down his men in a long exhausting siege. He was after the greater prize Rome itself and would not be denied it this time.

City after city fell to him Aquileia, Altinum, Concordia and Cremona. He marched along the coast of the Adriatic, using the roads built by Rome to transport his own legions along the Falminian Way by passing Narni. The Goths pitched their tents outside the walls of Rome. At the court of Ravenna, Honorius continued his life style and luxury, but in his capital, the ravens of death had gathered.

Casca knew what the word siege meant starvation and disease, hardship to such a degree that the average person would readily perform acts he would never have thought himself capable of.

Nothing entered the gates of Rome. The food stopped and those inside came face to face with the worst nightmare in the six hundred year history of the city.

Alaric required neighboring states to provide his forces with regular shipments of supplies and made no further moves. He was now going to try and consolidate his gains and take over actual control of what remained of the Roman Empire and he still accepted delegations from Honorius showing them courtesy and restraint in his demands. He knew that the counselors of Honorius were looking for any sign of weakness on his part and that wishful thinking and the need to reinforce the image would force them to try and take advantage of him.

He waited, and it wasn't long in coming that Honorius, at the urging of Olympius, ordered six thousand of his Dalmatians to march to Rome, right through the lands occupied by the Goths and their allies. Casca and Vergix were ordered to go along with them as part of a small contingent of his Imperial Guard to show the Emperor's colors in Rome.

They never reached the gates. The six thousand under the command of Valens died under the lances and blades
of fifty thousand Goths and Huns. Only Valens with a hundred soldiers escaped the slaughter; the rest lay broken on the fields and the few survivors were being herded off to slave pens.

Casca and Vergix marched with them. Vergix had a broken arm and Casca showed several cuts on his already well
-marked hide. He had been knocked unconscious by a thrown axe that nearly split his helmet open and Vergix had stood over his body fighting like a madman until he was so exhausted he could barely stand. His arm was broken by a club wielding Vandal.

When Vergix fell, he raised his face and called to Father Odin with what he thought would be his last breath. That was what saved him. The Vandal halted in midair what was to be Vergix's death blow.

"Are you of the tribes?"

Vergix avowed as how he was and that he was ready to die. A Goth officer rode up at that time and asked what the matter was and when
told Vergix was German, he gave the Vandal orders to take him prisoner. Alaric wished for all men from the tribes found in Roman uniform to be brought to him. As Casca was unconscious and of fair enough coloring to pass, Vergix told them he, too, was of the tribes. Therefore, Casca was permitted to survive this day and was taken from the field chained by the neck, marching along with several hundred others, but kept apart from them.